Morning Board (and yet even more church calendar printables)

We finally wrapped up the school year (yes, in mid-June), and I'm trying to get my planning done for next year. I am putting together a morning board - not too complicated because I know we won't keep to any kind of daily task for long. But I thought a simple board could help keep us on track in a few ways (download below):

1. Weekly Gospel reading.
I love-loved Elissa podcast Teaching the Story and really want to try to incorporate this into our usual routine. We already try to listen to the Gospel some of the time, so hopefully this won't be too difficult to incorporate. I intend to listen again, and write out some questions to use as prompts to help us interpret our lives through the Gospel stories.

2. Weekly lesson plans
I already have the plans all laid out for me in my planner, but I thought if the kids can see what we need to complete each week they might take some ownership in getting the work done. So we'll write them on the board, and the kids can help erase them as we go.

3. Hi-5
The girls are still learning to manage their own personal hygiene and dress themselves. We use this little list of 5 mornings tasks (go potty, brush teeth, get dressed, brush hair, eat breakfast) to build a routine. They have to get their high five before we can start school.

4. Reading charts
We've picked out some read-alouds for the year, and we all love progress charts. We'll get started on these this summer.

5. Church calendar
You know, I tried a fancy calendar, and while I really liked making it, it's totally impractical for my elementary kiddos. I really liked the timeline on the wall seen here, but just don't have the wall space for it. So anyway, I put together these cards with the feasts, fasts, and some of our family's favorite saints' days. I included the icon, date, and troparion for the day. I think I used a kontakion for a couple of the saints, and the fasts have a scripture or prayer or pre-feast hymn. Something simple to learn. I'll just pin the current one up, and change them out. I had them printed on cardstock and cut for me, so they'd be nice and last. I'm really happy with them.

You can download my pdf, but you may want to make some with your families' saints. I realized I left out the feast of Ascension and my husband's patron saint, so I'll probably make another set at some point. (Now updated!) I used a penmanship font for the kids.

6. Good-things record
The kids and I all tend to get grumpy and whiny at times, and when we do, I love to sit down and ask them about the good things of the day. Then I draw little cartoons of all the good things. I think, mostly, I like this because its a fun art-prompt for me, but the girls enjoy seeing the drawings too, and by the end of it we're usually all pretty happy. I decided to put this on the board so we could remember to do this more often, instead of only when we're grumpy.
I think this will be a fun record to look back at as well.


So I'm ready to go for next year! I've got all my curriculum plans and materials organized. Funny how I get that burst of energy just as we're winding down. Hopefully I can keep it up next year.